


The Flower Boy

by adorkablephil (kimberly_a)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Dreams, Dreamsharing, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-05 22:31:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16376222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimberly_a/pseuds/adorkablephil
Summary: Nothing is AU … except that Dan and Phil have been in each other’s dreams since childhood (takes place before and during TATINOF)





	The Flower Boy

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Imaginary Friends](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12350436) by [adorkablephil (kimberly_a)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimberly_a/pseuds/adorkablephil). 



> This is a brief Dan POV of my fic “[ **Imaginary Friends**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12350436/),” since some readers had requested it. If the basic concepts in this little one-shot intrigue you, I would encourage you to read the longer story (which is written in a much different style) from Phil’s POV, because it is a much more detailed and, in my opinion, more beautiful telling of the story told so briefly here from Dan’s POV.

Dan knew from a very young age whom he was going to marry. He didn't know the boy's name, or where he lived, but he knew the boy's heart as well as he knew his own, and he knew one day they would find each other and stay together forever. He didn’t really understand the concept of marriage very well at that age, but he knew it meant being with your very best friend forever, and he knew that was what they were going to do.

They’d been in each other’s dreams his entire life, as long as he could remember, and he loved the flower boy more than he loved his parents, more than he thought he could ever love anyone else in the world. They were meant for each other. They were part of each other. They were  _one_.

That was why Dan was so confused when he first met Phil Lester, because he immediately felt that same kind of connection, and he found himself falling in love for the second time in his life.

It seemed like such a terrible betrayal of that first love, that love which continued and would never end,  _could_  never end. How could he love two people at the same time with the same intensity? How could he feel such a bond with someone new after all these years of ultimate connection with his dreaming flower boy?

He desperately fought his feelings for Phil from that first day at Manchester Piccadilly. He refused to betray that first love, his love for the flower boy of his dreams, the boy who had been with him through everything, through his entire life … the boy who understood him like no one else.

And yet … there was Phil.

Dan’s internal conflict was easier to bear when they lived far apart. He and Phil could be good friends—close friends,  _best_  friends, friends who visited each other often—without Dan feeling that weighty sense of guilt. But when they began sharing a flat, it was much more difficult.

Every time he and his beloved flower boy were together in their dreams, he tried to hide his emotional turmoil, and in the dreams it was not that difficult, because in the dreams he and the other boy—a young man now, but he still thought of him as the flower boy of his childhood, the boy who seemed always to cause flowers to grow wherever he went, wherever he touched—became one again. Their connection had only grown stronger over the years, and so Dan would not do anything to endanger something as precious as their love for each other.

And yet … there was Phil.

Dan’s struggle became even more difficult when the TATINOF tour began, because he and Phil agreed that the bed was large enough for two, and neither of them was homophobic enough to be embarrassed to share a bed with another man who also happened to be his best friend.

But how could Dan have two best friends? Surely his dreaming flower boy was still his best friend. He always had been, for Dan’s entire life. He always would be. Someday they would find each other in the real world and be together forever. He had never doubted it, and he did not doubt it now.

Unfortunately, sharing the bed on the tour bus became more complicated when Dan’s dreams grew more romantic and, eventually, more sexual. His relationship with his flower boy, now his dream lover, had become more intense, more intimate, and their connection had become stronger than ever before.

Sleeping beside Phil in the same bed while Dan dreamt of making love to someone else in his dreams caused its own problems, as he found himself waking up with his hips grinding against Phil in a way that felt like he was cheating on his true love … and yet in some ways on the tour he had begun to feel even closer to Phil than he had back at the flat. He had long ago driven his initial romantic feelings for Phil underground, as they betrayed his love for the flower boyman so thoroughly, and so during the tour he began to distance himself even from their friendship, hoping to avoid his unintentional nighttime transgressions and confusing emotions. He saw the hurt in Phil’s eyes every day as Dan put more distance between them, but he could not stop.

It was difficult to perform a stage show nearly every night which focused on the closeness of their friendship when he was purposely trying to pull away, but he would take no chances. He would  _not_  lose the greatest love of his life. Even if, in the end, he might even have to end his relationship with Phil to avoid acting on his inappropriate feelings, he would not allow anything to endanger his first and greatest love. Because one day, he and the flower man would find each other, and their soul-deep connection would finally translate to a physical connection, and they would spend the rest of their lives together. Forever. Dan had known it his entire life, it had sustained him through some very hard times. It was the greatest truth of his life.

Yes. Yes, Dan had always known it, ever since he was a small child, and he would not let anything ruin it. Not even his love for Phil.

But as the tour continued and the romance in his dreams grew more and more intense, he noticed Phil frequently watching him during the day with an expression that Dan could only call “love.” Phil seemed to be  _longing_  for Dan, looking at him with eyes more open and honest in their affections than Dan had ever seen previously. And Phil’s obvious, apparent, unhidden love caused Dan to grow increasingly confused again, as he had felt in the days after Manchester Piccadilly, in the weeks after they first became flatmates. His feelings for Phil roiled underground where he had forced them so many years ago, but he refused to acknowledge them, refused to give them room in his waking life, let alone in his dreams where he and his lover could be together.

Perhaps he never would have realized the truth, perhaps he and Phil would never have figured it out, if it hadn’t been for the forced intimacy of the tour and the shared bed. If they had continued sleeping in their separate bedrooms in their familiar flat with their established routine, perhaps they would never have understood.

But the fact is that the tour  _did_  happen, and they  _did_  share the bed, and marvelous events transpired that made the truth clear to both of them.

For Dan learned that Phil was his flower boy, his flower man, his lover, his dream partner from childhood, the mate he had chosen to be his forever. Neither of them had known. Not when they were children, not when they messaged each other on Twitter, not when they met at Manchester Piccadilly, not when they moved into a flat together, not when they chose to share that bed on the tour bus.

Dan had fought his feelings for Phil for years out of loyalty to his first love … only to learn that his first love and his second were one and the same.

The story of how they learned the truth, and the story of what happened afterward … those are tales for another day.

This simple tale was only about a boy who grew into a young man, a young man who had only one true love in his life, and it was the same true love he’d had since his cradle.

This was simply the tale of how two people found each other, both in their dreams and on the Internet, and lived together happily ever after, just as Dan had always known they would.

**Author's Note:**

> I know this isn't a full Dan POV of all events in "Imaginary Friends," but I thought a complete retelling of that story from Dan's POV would be a little tedious for people who had read the original fic. If you're an "Imaginary Friends" reader and you really want that whole story from Dan's POV, I might be willing to indulge you sometime in the future. :)


End file.
